Survival Hunter Talents & Build Guide – Legion 7.3.5

Welcome to the Survival Hunter Talent guide! This guide provides an overview of all Survival Hunter Talents, information on which talents work well in different situations, and popular Survival Hunter builds in Wowhead's talent calculator. This guide was written by Delirium from the Thrill of the Wild and the Hunting Party Podcast. Updated for the latest patch.

Quick Talent Builds

Survival Hunters in 7.3.2 have a unique condition, in that nearly all talents are viable, and can be used in the right combinations;. The following represents Survival Hunter builds considered optimal for many raid bosses in the Antorus raid, but should be tweaked depending on the specific boss, or specific strategy your raid team is using; this does not mean these are the only good builds, or nothing else is acceptable.

**Notes**

Tiers not selected on the Talent Calculators below do no affect DPS, and should be chosen based on personal preference or the utility needs of a specific boss encounter; there are no specific talents in these tiers which are best in all situations, except that 逃脱 is always unreasonably awesome.

The following Survival Hunter builds were developed based on the performance of top hunters on raid logging sites, mathematical analysis, simulations and common sense. There are situations where one Talent may give you more potential DPS than another, but still not be preferable if it has too many other drawbacks. This is generally only the case in talents that do lots of AoE damage, but cause you to perform significantly less priority target damage, and will be worse for you as a member of a raid team. With that said, different teams have different needs, and experimenting with various builds to see what works best with your specific set of circumstances is always advisable.

Recommended Single Target Talents:

Recommended Optimal Cleave/AOE Talents:

Easier Cleave/AOE Build:

Level 15 Tier

动物本能 - Flanking Strike also reduces the remaining cooldown by 3 seconds of one of: 侧翼打击, 猫鼬撕咬, 雄鹰守护, or 鱼叉猛刺. This talent doesn't pair too well with 毒蛇钉刺.

飞斧 - Throw Axes at your enemies. This talent's only benefit is allowing you to do more ranged damage on the occasion that you cannot be in melee.

莫克纳萨的作战技巧 - Increases your attack power by up to 12% when you use 猛禽一击 at least once every 10 seconds. This talent provides high potential single target damage, and can provide a boost to on-demand burst AoE. This can be a fairly difficult talent to maintain high up-time on, depending on your other talents, as Survival Hunters already have a lot of short cooldowns to track, and have more abilities they can use than they have GCDs to use them in.

致死之伤 - Lacerate ticks have a very small chance to proc 精通：狩猎伙伴. While this doesn't seem like much, it's not actually much worse than the other two talents, though it is less than optimal.

毒蛇猎手 - Instantly gives you 3 charges of Mongoose Bite. This can be an excellent selection, allowing you to, on occasion, avoid some of the bad RNG that may happen with the nature of 精通：狩猎伙伴. For SV hunters who also play MM or BM, you're likely to have enough Mastery on your gear that you always get plenty of 精通：狩猎伙伴 procs regardless of this talent.Author's Note: For what it's worth, I personally am not a big fan of Snake Hunter; however, most of the top SV hunters in the world take this talent religiously, and do amazing damage with it.

Level 45 Tier: Movement

迅疾如风 Increases speed after using 鱼叉猛刺. As you are generally 鱼叉猛刺ing to a target you're going to hit, having the increased movement speed isn't often helpful in PvE content.

逃脱 This talent provides excellent movement enhancement, and is just plain awesome as you fly backwards through the air. The combination of 逃脱 and 鱼叉猛刺 gives SV hunters a quick, reliable way to avoid ground mechanics and then get back to DPSing as quickly as possible.

开拓者 This talent will of course not provide any benefit in raiding situations, but may be useful in Mythic+ dungeons that have long runs without encountering enemies.

Level 60 Tier: Traps

游击战术 The extra damage on 爆炸陷阱 doesn't quite make this talent competitive. However, this may be a good choice if you're struggling to maintain good up-time on both 爆炸陷阱 and 铁蒺藜.

精钢陷阱 This is a solid chunk of damage, and should be taken in most single-target situations. It can be a good option when you need extra burst on a high HP, high-priority add.

Level 75 Tier: Utility

黏性炸弹 A difficult to use knock back with a delay. There are not many situations in raids or dungeons where this will be useful.

游侠之网 A root and slow can be useful for add management on fights like High Botanist Tel'arn; however, the 30 focus cost will reduce your DPS output further than just a lost GCD, so you should plan out with your raid leader when you should use this talent.

伪装 This is the most chosen talent for solo content or when you're trying to sneak around monsters in dungeons and raids. This extra heal may provide some small utility on certain fights, but comes at the cost of not DPSing, and thus isn't a reliable choice for raiding.

Level 90 Tier

屠戮 A very strong AoE ability for on-demand burst. This talent will be taken in nearly all AoE/Cleave situations.

龙焰手雷 While this received a decent sized buff for patch 7.2.5, it still isn't ideal for most situations.

毒蛇钉刺 This is a strong choice in this tier for single-target fights, and has the added benefit of not requiring an extra ability to use or manage. This talent pairs well with 莫克纳萨的作战技巧.

Level 100 Tier

喷毒眼镜蛇 This talent does a strong amount of single target damage and provides a little bit of extra focus for 30 seconds out of every minute.

陷阱专家 This is a passive ability that improves all of your traps, including increasing your 铁蒺藜' and 爆炸陷阱's damage significantly. It's only really useful in mass AoE situations when paired with 铁蒺藜.

野兽守护 This is generally not the best choice for competitive raiding or dungeons, but may have some uses in soloing content with alternative pet specs.